Shaft Has a Ball is the fourth novel in the iconic Shaft series, written by Ernest Tidyman and first published in 1973. In this hardboiled detective story, John Shaft is hired to protect a senator, but the mission goes sideways when a close associate, Ben Buford, is framed for a high-stakes hotel robbery. The narrative takes Shaft into the gritty underworld of 1970s New York, where he must navigate a complex web of Mafia schemes and revolutionary politics.